Xfce Forum

KitchM

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 337

How To Understand Mousepad GUI

I am having a problem with Mousepad.  It appears that I do not understand its parts and functions.

When I start it up, I can change the font, line wrap point and other things.  What I see on my screen is a light area but it does not appear to have any bearing on anything I can determine.  The minimal documentation showed nothing significant, and the options displayed by the use of the command  gsettings list-recursively org.xfce.mousepad shows things which are not self-defining.

Does anyone know what that lighter area is and why it is there?

Thank you.

Debian 12 with Xfce 4.18.

Last edited by KitchM (2025-05-27 16:14:33)

vm_x

Member

Registered: 2024-02-12

Posts: 23

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

I believe that's the "Long line margin" to help you keep track of character/column count.

You can turn if off in "Edit -> Preferences -> View -> Long line margin at column:"

KitchM

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 337

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

Yes, thank you.  That's what it was.

How nice it would have been if that was showing the margins of the document.

Added later 12 min 36 s:
For the next person, it is also a good idea to understand that the program apparently doesn't know anything about proper line wrap, if the user doesn't specify it.  It is wise to select Document > Word Wrap.  It is a misnomer which appears to actually mean 'Line Wrap'.  Checking this setting as On is always a good idea.  It seems to be at about the 80 character mark or so.

Another good idea, is to change the font size to something more appropriate for the average user.  Edit > Preferences > View > Font is where this is set.  Serif Bold 20 is a good place to start.  It is easily readable on a big screen.  Size can be adjusted from there quite easily as well.

Last edited by KitchM (2025-05-27 18:18:26)

vm_x

Member

Registered: 2024-02-12

Posts: 23

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

Mousepad isn't a document writing software, it's a text editor (think Notepad from Windows).

The default settings are that way because the programmers mostly want it that way. The margin helps (without enforcing) keep your code under 80 characters long (which is a widely popular un-written rule), for example. In most cases, you want the word wrap turned off. And so on.

KitchM

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 337

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

Yes, I think you are mostly correct.  Another way to say it is that the programmers made it for themselves. 

But let me be clear.  The default settings do not line wrap at 80 characters.  They go much, much farther than that.  IMHO that is a flaw.  That is why I pointed it out.

As to the idea of a text editor, this is different things to different people.  Any amount of text in a file, when it is made up of communications containing words and sentences between people, is a document as far as many people are concerned.  Therefore, any editor is a document writer of one form or another.

Your concept may get us into confusing areas of thought when we consider the idea that we have a script or a config file we need to view and/or edit.  Any editor can be used, but some are better.  I could use Writer or WordPerfect, but would much rather use something like Gedit in the GUI or Nano in the CLI.  (Of course, it is nice to see that syntax highlighting.)

It is helpful to go back to the original concept of decades ago; there were the two extremes of editors and desktop publishers.  For some reason, word processors existed, and then became everything that desktop publishing could be.  So basically simple editors and fancy editors exist now.

vm_x

Member

Registered: 2024-02-12

Posts: 23

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

The default settings do not line wrap at 80 characters.  They go much, much farther than that.  IMHO that is a flaw.

That's the desired behaviour. So when a line is too long, you get the horizontal scrollbar.

And the long line margin is not supposed to wrap anything, it's only a visual clue.

It's a good thing it's configurable, so you can adjust it to your liking.

As to the idea of a text editor, this is different things to different people.  Any amount of text in a file, when it is made up of communications containing words and sentences between people, is a document as far as many people are concerned.  Therefore, any editor is a document writer of one form or another.

True in general, but I don't think XFCE targets those people.

Last edited by vm_x (2025-05-27 21:18:01)

KitchM

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 337

Re: How To Understand Mousepad GUI

Thanks for the good input.